Arthur Banbury’s story about his bus driver father’s lucky escape the night Leicester’s Freeman Hardy and Willis factory was devastated by a bomb during the Second World War, prompted another reader to get in touch.

Peter Spencer, of Westover Road, Leicester, had a similar recollection concerning the same night of November 19-20 in 1940.

He said: “During the war, when the air raid siren went at night, we would sleep in the pantry under the stairs at our home – my mother, a spinster friend of hers from next door but one and myself.

“One night, the siren went and we were preparing to get ready for the pantry when Mr Lane, our next door neighbour, came in to say we could go to the factory where he was a caretaker if we wanted.